


i know i seem shaky, these hands aren’t fit for holding

by goreds



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: F/M, lots of language as you would expect from the queen of the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21624583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreds/pseuds/goreds
Summary: Sadavir Errinwright's been in the prison of his own making for a while. Chrisjen Avasarala wants to pay him a visit.
Relationships: Chrisjen Avasarala/Sadavir Errinwright
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**_Errinwright_ **

When the dust settled, he got lucky, former UN Undersecretary Sadavir Errinwright supposes. He didn’t get the death penalty for his treason, despite the venom he spat at a typically pathetic Esteban (who is living a happy retirement, he hears). Somehow, he has Chrisjen to thank for that. _Secretary-General Chrisjen Avasarala_ , he thinks to himself, feeling his face burst into a smirk. Esteban wanted the death sentence, but Chrisjen forced him out before that could happen. The Ring had appeared, and nobody much cared about one of the bureaucratic enablers of Jules-Pierre Mao, the butcher of Eros. Sure, he was a war criminal (technically), but it was _Mars_ that had launched the attack against Earth that got billions killed. He just lightly encouraged that by forcing Esteban’s hand and _making_ him order the attack on the Martian missile platforms. And yes, he very much tried to get Chrisjen killed. (And he killed a member of the Martian government, but the guy was a scumbag, so maybe he deserved it.)

Looking back on all of that, maybe he _should_ have gotten the death penalty. He realizes that he’s still smirking.

The psychiatrist who runs his dream therapy sessions is glaring at him.

“Do you think this is funny, Errinwright?” Dr. Linds is an irritating woman who tries to probe his deepest darkest subconscious to get him to free himself of his deepest darkest actual self.

He thinks _that_ is funny. He finds himself laughing for the first time in months. _God_ , he thinks to himself _, it’s been a year and a half of this bullshit_.

Dr. Linds closes her computer terminal and sighs. The session is finally over. The guards will come and get him ( _why do they need multiple guards to escort me_ , he wonders before remembering, once again, that he _killed_ someone in cold blood). And he’ll go back to his solitary cell (they didn’t want him getting shivved in gen pop--he wonders if that was Chrisjen’s idea), and he’ll glare at the wall that some former occupant carved their hatred into.

Sadavir wishes he could write. He’s not sure _what_ he would write, but maybe some sort of treatise on being an _actual_ patriot for Earth and not being a spineless wimp like Esteban. ( _I can’t believe I called that idiot “sir” for so goddamn long._ ) Or maybe a treatise on being loyal _solely_ to Earth and not to a bunch of Belters and even, horrors, Mars, like Chrisjen. Maybe that’s not fair to her. Maybe it is. He doesn’t get the news anymore. He has no idea what she’s doing. 

Sometimes, he muses about the morning of the day he confessed his crimes to Chrisjen, when he briefly considered knicking himself a little _too_ hard with his razor. He didn’t do it, though. He’d never do it, he realized a long time ago.

Because, truthfully, Sadavir Errinwright enjoyed this all _too_ much. Not being in prison, certainly. Not being left to languish. Not essentially being forgotten by everyone. But enjoyed having an impact, even if that impact left people dead. And didn’t really bring any good into the universe.

“But you know that’s not true,” he finds himself saying to himself once he’s back in his cell. “If Eros hadn’t happened there would be no damn ring. The Belters and the Martians and Earth wouldn’t be at peace. That annoying ice hauler crew wouldn’t be who they are today.”

He’s a great enabler, and he knows that.

Technically, and he wishes he had the chance to say this in addition to his pre-written statement at his hasty trial, Chrisjen enabled him for _years_. Until she didn’t. Until she betrayed him and threw him to the wolves. And then he returned the favor. He even got her beloved bodyguard slash spy killed. Not that he had intended for Admiral Nguyen to start firing the protomolecule torpedos into their _own_ _damn fleet_. _I wonder if Chrisjen ever slept with Ghazi?_

No, he supposes. And he doesn’t really know _why_ he thought that. He’s getting bored, he guesses. No, Chrisjen is very loyal to her annoying Arjun, the poetry professor. _A poetry professor, Chrisjen, really? You could have had anyone you wanted and you chose the least ambitious of them all._

Sadavir blinks blankly at the wall, where he notices someone etched a heart with, presumably, their initials and someone else’s initials inside of it. He’d never noticed that before. He stifles a laugh. He knows there’s cameras watching him, and he _really_ doesn’t want them to think ole’ Errinwright’s losing his marbles.

He hears the buzz that means his door is unlocking. He’s a little surprised--there was nothing else on his schedule that day.

The warden, an unpleasant but mostly just boring man, enters. “Prisoner Errinwright, good day. You have a visitor.”

“I thought we weren’t allowed visitors; everything goes through the damn video communications systems these days.” 

The warden looks uncomfortable.

_Odd._

“Prisoner, this is a special case.” The warden motions for two guards to come into the cell. They secure him; he’s never gotten used to being restrained. Thankfully, never chemically, just physically...but still, not necessarily something that happened ever to one of Earth’s finest public servants.

They march him out of his cell, and they take him to the lift, which surprises him. The prison is underground--they never get to go above ground. He wonders if he’ll get the chance to see the sun at some point. _But no, seriously, where the **fuck** are they taking me? And to who?_


	2. Chapter 2

**_Avasarala_ **

_Why the fuck am I doing this_ , the Secretary-General wonders to herself. _I’ve got much more important things to do._ She’s on UN One, flying towards a black site, where they’ve got more political and high-profile prisoners tucked away than one can calculate. Well, she’s sure _someone_ could, and she’s sure her young aides would probably have the answer, but she really fucking does not care.

Chrisjen Avasarala looks down at her weathered, wrinkled hands, covered in rings. They’re shaking. _Turbulence probably_.

No, that’s not true. She’s just terrified. And furious. But mostly terrified.

She’s been trying to pinpoint _why_ she’s terrified, but she can’t figure that out, and that...bothers her.

_I’m just visiting an old friend._

_An old friend who is responsible for the murder of my spy, nearly my own death and countless others._

_Just an old friend_.

Sadavir Errinwright had been her mentee ever since he left school. She had at least ten years on him, and she was surprised to find out years later that he had picked her, personally. He was at the top of his class, of course he got the chance to pick whoever he wanted. _And he picked me_.

Chrisjen is still not entirely sure why. She guesses he admired her, but she’s not sure why, that early in her career. _Maybe it was a schoolboy crush_. She chuckles to herself. _Sadavir, why did you do anything?_

Because he was ambitious. And she was ambitious too. Maybe he saw that in her, even early on. Maybe that’s why he latched onto her. Because he was, to the very end, a patriot. Too much a patriot. But then again, so was she...or at least that’s what people said about her.

Chrisjen had mellowed on the patriotism ever since her experiences in space. Ever since meeting Bobbie, and some of the Belters, and Jim Holden and his crew, as well as seeing her own people, including Sadavir, tear themselves apart for some fucking alien tech they didn’t even fully comprehend.

Not that _she_ comprehended it, either. But then again, no one did. Not even Jim Holden, with that Miller fellow stuck in his head (supposedly).

It was a era of miracles, Anna Volovodov had told her, when she volunteered to go aboard a science vessel to the Ring. Thankfully, Anna had survived the bloodbath that was the initial Ring encounter. _At least her death isn’t on my conscience_.

But there are so many others that are--Cotyar’s weighs heavily. All those billions in South America. Her son’s, of course.

And somehow, what happened to Sadavir does too. Maybe she blames herself for his traitorous turn. _But that would be blaming the victim, wouldn’t it? Not that I’m a fucking victim._

“He’s not even dead,” she exclaims loudly. She’s grateful she has the cabin to herself, currently. Arjun isn’t coming along, because she didn’t tell him where she was going or what she was doing. Not because he would’ve forbidden her (Arjun never forbids her), but because he would have worried. And Arjun’s really worried enough about her.

She looks at her reflection in her glass desk. The trip to space only aged her further. That much pressure on the human body, especially an aging one...that would never be good for one’s health. Or one’s looks. _Of course, I’m still fucking gorgeous_.

Chrisjen still frowns at her reflection, though. She does wonder why she cares. Maybe her aging is just getting more blatant since space and that daunting flight on the _Razorback_. Julie Mao’s ship. She wonders if Mao appears to Holden too, alongside Miller. According to Holden, the two died together and had a special connection. Holden’s never mentioned her.

_Now why am I thinking about that?_

“This flight is taking too fucking long.” She calls the cockpit. The pilot, a short woman with a crooked smile, answers. “Yes, Madam Secretary-General?”

“Can’t we go any fucking faster? Where the hell is this black site, anyway? On the North goddamn Pole?”

“My apologies, ma’am. We’re about to land--I was going to make the announcement right before you called--”

“Yes, fine, good.” Chrisjen closes the connection abruptly. Now that they’re so close, she wishes she wasn’t. She stands, and she goes over to the mirror in the cabin. She purposely avoids looking at her face, focusing on putting her hair back up (she’d taken it down because her up-dos had started to give her headaches) and getting any wrinkles out of her dress. She’d deliberately dressed simply for this occasion. No press cameras would be on her, and she wasn’t really expecting to see anyone important but Sadavir.

_Not that he’s important anymore._

Chrisjen wishes she felt smug about that...but she only finds herself feeling sad.

“What the hell happened to you, my devious boy?”

 _I’m getting too damn sentimental_.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Errinwright_ **

Sadavir is delighted for the first time in a while to actually get a chance to see the sun. And the sky! He’s actually got quite the view--or at least, considering he was underground for so long, an okay view. It’s not the view from his old office at the UN, but it’ll do.

He’s handcuffed to a transparent, plastic table in a windowed room (he can only assume the glass is very thick and durable), secured to a similarly designed plastic chair. _I wouldn’t escape, so I’m not sure why they’re taking these precautions_.

There’s an empty chair across from him, where he supposes his guest will sit. Maybe Chrisjen put in a good word, and it’s his son. Maybe Esteban pulled some strings, and he’s just here to bluster at him. Maybe that damn Reverend Anna is here to talk down to him some more.

 _Maybe it’s Chrisjen_.

He shakes his head at that thought. _Why the hell would she come here?_

Sadavir gets his answer, when he hears that familiar, husky (even sultry at times) voice behind the door.

“Fuck.” He mutters.

The door opens, and in all her glory, UN Secretary-General Chrisjen Avasarala wisps into the room.

 _Fuck me_.

In that moment, he realizes he’s memorizing every single detail about her more than he ever had before; her hair’s up as always, but she’s wearing simpler clothing than she ever did at work. She’s still got rings adorning her fingers, and glittery earrings. And she looks...older. He saw her briefly at his trial, but only briefly, and not nearly as close as they are now.

Sadavir then realizes he’s staring.

“Sadavir,” she says affectionately.

He finds himself bowing his head, since he can’t bow properly ( _damn restraints)._ “Madam Secretary-General.”

_Where the hell did that come from?_

“Why the fuck is he restrained?”

Sadavir finds himself smiling at her usual bullishness and profanity.

The warden, a man with far less resolve than she, looks to the ground awkwardly and mutters his standard spiel about the danger of unrestrained prisoners. 

“Sure, he murdered some fucking Martian, but he wouldn’t be stupid enough to try it with me. Please take his restraints off.”

“Ma’am, I’m really not sure that’s a good idea--”

“Who’s in charge here? You?”

“...no, ma’am.” The warden waddles over and undoes Sadavir’s restraints. Sadavir rubs his wrists, while glaring at the warden.

“Now leave us.” Chrisjen stares the warden down.

“Ma’am, prison regulations dictate--”

“You have fucking cameras, right? Use them, and get the fuck out of here.”

The warden scuttles out and leaves the two of them together.

In the same room. Alone. For the first time in what feels like...forever.

Sadavir doesn’t really know what to say. And seemingly, for the first time in her life, neither does Chrisjen.

So he decides to speak.

“Well, thanks for letting me see the sun, at least. They never let me out of the hole, and they probably never will after this, so...thanks.” The very act of his deciding to speak seems to unlock something in her.

“You left me to die on Jules-Pierre Mao’s fucking ship. You got my spy killed. You were responsible for the deaths of countless Earth citizens, and you unleashed a torrent of shit helping Mao with that damn protomolecule. You shouldn’t be thanking me for the fucking sun, you should be thanking me for your fucking life, you cunt!”

“Ah, Chrisjen. I’ve missed your candor. Everyone here’s afraid--” She smacks him. Hard. Luckily not with the side of her hand wearing the rings. _Ow_.

There’s some commotion behind the door, probably the guards preparing to come in. Chrisjen places her hand on the door and in her fullest danger voice, “Stay the fuck outside, you fucking grunts.”

The commotion stops. He just stares at her and crooks part of his mouth upwards. His cheek smarts, but he’s not exactly going to tell her _that_. Besides, he knows that his cool stare and smirk combination drives her fucking crazy in a bad way.

“What are you fucking smirking at?”

“You. The fact that you’re using the first substantial power either of us have ever had to yell at some prison grunt idiots.”

Chrisjen pulls her chair back and sits down, primly. “You’re probably wondering why the fuck I’m here.”

“It had crossed my mind, yes.”


	4. Chapter 4

**_Avasarala_ **

So she’d smacked him within seconds of their reuniting. _Better than shooting him_.

And now, with, his typically pale cheek turning very red from the impact, he was still _smirking_ at her. She fucking hated when he smirked. _But why the fuck am I here?_

“I don’t know why the fuck I’m here.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” he says, coolly.

“Maybe I missed our chats.”

“Our chats? Usually you just yelled and rained hell upon my head or Esteban’s before huffing out of the room.”

“I do not huff--”

“You do, and you’re tempted to do it now, so the question I have is...why are you still here?”

Fuck. Why was she still here? And she finds herself saying the unthinkable.

“Because...because I missed you, Sadavir.”

 _That_ seems to finally shake the smirk off his face.

“I didn’t think anyone above ground missed me. Except maybe Jules-Pierre.”

Chrisjen chuckles darkly. “He’s deep below ground now.”

“No.”

“He somehow committed suicide in prison shortly after finding out what his oldest daughter Clarissa did during the Ring discovery.”

“What did she do?”

“Tried to murder Holden.”

“I’d be lying if I said I’m going to miss Jules-Pierre...and I’d be omitting the truth if I didn’t say I wish Clarissa had succeeded.”

Chrisjen finds herself pursing her lips at the younger man. _Slightly younger_. “Holden’s not terrible. When you get to know him.”

“He seems like an honorable stick-in-the-mud who likes poking his nose into situations that he knows smell like shit. So basically, he’s your loyal lapdog.”

“Like you could _never_ be.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. I was your loyal lapdog for years. And then you kicked me, and I found my bite.”

She stifles a chuckle. “And your bark. ‘And get the fuck back to work.’ Do you know how many times I have heard that since I decrypted the recording of your betrayal? Too many.”

She sees him smiling this time, not smirking. The smile doesn’t reach his eyes, but it oh so rarely did.

“I can’t figure out who I enjoyed fucking over more--you or Jules-Pierre.”

Oh, now she wants to smack him again. But then she realizes his eyes have gotten sad. And suddenly he’s not smiling. He’s frowning. He’s looking at down his hands.

“You’ve never murdered someone, have you, Chrisjen?”

“Not to my knowledge, no. I’ve sent people to their deaths before, though.”

“Not the same thing.”

“No.”

“When I poisoned Korshunov, I held him. As he was dying.”

“Why?”

“Well, half so he could hear me finally get the last word in--”

She chuckles darkly at that.

“And half because...because...”

“Because what?”

“Because I didn’t expect it to be so _violent_. I never served, I’ve...never even been to space. Guess I never will.”

Chrisjen sees her own face in the reflection of the table. “Don’t wish you could. It’s no fun.”

“You’ve gotten older.”

“And somehow you haven’t changed. Like some sort of fucking vampire.”

“Well, admittedly, they keep me in a hermetically sealed cell away from the elements _and_ the sun. Until now, at least.”

“So what you’re telling me, if these visits will continue, I’ll just get older and older and you’ll stay your traitorous handsome self.” _Shit. Did I just call him handsome? Well he is, I guess._

“Traitorous, yes. Handsome, I don’t know. But thanks for the compliment. And space may have done a number on you, but you’re still you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Chrisjen feels hours pass even though it’s barely a minute that the two stare each other down.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Errinwright** _

Sadavir trained himself a long time ago not to smile with his eyes. It had actually been Chrisjen who had called him on it, when they were much younger, right when he had become his mentee. “Smiling with your eyes is an invitation,” she had said, “to attack.”

But she was smiling with her eyes right now. _So what the fuck does that mean?_

He clears his throat uncomfortably.

“Yes?”

“Chrisjen...ah, ma’am--”

“Please, Sadavir. You don’t have to rely on pleasantries. I’m not Esteban, who needed the pleasantries to feel truly important.”

He chuckles. She really had everyone pegged, didn’t she? “Okay, Chrisjen, you said you don’t know why you’re here...but you decided to come, so you clearly had an idea of _why_ then.”

Her brow furrows. He always liked how he could see her plotting, scheming...although right now she just appears to be thinking.

“I guess...after what happened to Mao, I wanted to see if you were alright.”

“No one told me he killed himself.”

“That’s not what I meant. I know very well you don’t give a shit about his wellbeing or lack thereof. I meant...you’re not--”

“Thinking of killing myself? Well, that would be difficult. Here, at least. There was one time I considered it, but the moment passed.” He finds himself going steely-eyed.

Chrisjen looks at him softly. He was expecting her own steely-eyed glare to come back. “What happened to you, Sadavir?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you do everything you did?”

“To preserve Earth. Isn’t that why we did everything over the years? Don’t forget, you tortured Belters.”

“I didn’t fucking aid and abet a man who turned a space station into a goddamn petri dish.”

“To be fair, I didn’t think Mao would go that far.”

“I also didn’t fucking order an attack that killed billions in South America.”

“To be fair, that was Esteban.” _God, I’m a snake._

“And I would never abandon my children or my grandchildren to...to...”

Oh, now he’s mad. “What? To defend Earth? Our home? It’s _our_ home, Chrisjen. Not the Belters’ home. Certainly not the fucking Martians’ home.”

“Earth is the cradle of civilization, of humanity, we all came from here.”

“If you want to go back that far, be my fucking guest.”

And suddenly: “I like it when you swear.”

“What?” he finds himself saying.

“I like it when you swear.”

Sadavir finds himself smiling with his eyes.

“I also like it when you smile with your eyes.”

“Really? Because you’re the one who told me it was an invitation for attack.”

“I know. I was right then, and I’m still right about that now.”

 _I’m so confused_ , he finds himself thinking.

“You, Sadavir, are not a threat. To anyone.”

“I am a murderer, Chrisjen.”

“Somehow, I don’t think you’ll do it again.”

He snorts. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I should visit you more often.”

He’s taken aback. “Why?”

“Because. I need you, and you need me.”

“Go on.”

“I’m surrounded by boring people or idiots or boring idiots at the UN. Everyone’s so concerned with being nice and friendly and safe these days, being the opposite of you--”

“Oh, gee, thanks--”

“Shut up. And you’re bored, and lonely, and I’m probably the only friend you’ve got left in this world.”

“You still think we’re _friends_?”

“What’s a little attempted murder between friends?”

“Are we _just_ friends, Chrisjen?” _That slipped out_.

“Whatever the fuck do you mean by that?”


	6. Chapter 6

**_Avasarala_ **

_No, seriously, what the fuck did he mean by that?_

“I don’t know. It popped out.”

And now, she flat out laughs. “Why, Sadavir, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you had a schoolboy crush on me.”

He smiles softly, and it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe a long time ago.”

“You can’t tell me you still don’t think about it. Because clearly you still do.”

“I...don’t. You’re married. And I’m, technically, evil. A traitor. An enemy of the state.”

She can’t help but feel a little disappointed. But not because he’s not attracted to her--because he thinks he isn’t. Chrisjen can tell by looking at him that he’s much, much tenser than he was when she first walked in. Sadavir, she realizes looking back, was this tense frequently around her. _Holy fuck._

“You’re not evil. You are a traitor. I don’t see what that has to do with the laws of attraction.” She sounds flat, emotionless. _Good_.

He just sits there, spine as straight as a rod, staring at anything _but_ her.

“Sadavir, if I told you a secret, would you keep it?”

“I don’t exactly have anyone here to tell.”

“When I first met you, I met a friendly, bright young man with a great future before him full of triumph. And I envied that. I envied how you still smiled with your eyes, I envied how open you were with your schoolboy crush, which you were, even if you didn’t realize it. I’d been doing my job for almost ten years at that point. I was tired of bureaucracy. And then you came in...and...you were my pride and joy. You excelled at every task I gave you. You were so...diplomatic. And manipulative when you needed to be. I tried to mold you in my image. I think I broke you in the process.”

“If I was as bright and as friendly as you said I was, I was going to get broken down eventually. I’m glad you were the one to do it. You did it as nicely as you could, Chrisjen.”

Chrisjen realizes he’s taken her hand. And then he kisses it.

“Sadavir...”

“You didn’t destroy me, Chrisjen. You made me better. I destroyed myself.”

“Do you think...if we could do it all again...we would do it differently?” Chrisjen withdraws the hand he was still holding and gently caresses the part of his cheek that she slapped. He winces a little.

“I don’t know.” He says this quietly.

She realizes he’s trembling. “Sadavir, are you alright? Truly?” She stands up and walks over to him, standing at his side. He looks up at her, eyes wet. _Shit_. “Sadavir. Don’t--”

“I’m not...I’m not going to cry. Or weep. Not in front of you. And I haven’t done it in years, so I’m not going to start again now.” He looks away from her, down at his hands again, rubbing at them. And suddenly: “You remember _Macbeth_?”

“What?”

“Out, damn spot, out.”

“You’re not...irredeemable. If Fred Johnson can be redeemed, so can you.” Chrisjen reaches for his hands, which he’s still rubbing together, as if trying to get rid of some horrible stain. And she holds on. She just holds on.

“Chrisjen?” His voice is soft.

“Yes, my dear boy.”

“I’m...I’m sorry.” He whispers this.

“I cannot absolve you, you know that. And I certainly can’t pardon you, either.”

“I know.”

“But I can come visit you. And maybe, someday...we’ll get you out of the hole. Maybe I’ll even take you up to the stars.”

Sadavir looks up to her with those bright eyes of his. The smile has reached them again. “I would like that.”

Chrisjen smiles down at him, her eyes smiling too. She gently kisses his forehead. And then, leans down to whisper in his ear. “You’re still a cunt.”

He looks at her with amusement in his eyes. “Oh, my dear Secretary-General Avasarala. Whatever would I do without you?”


End file.
